Note that this is a dead fic. I wrote it almost exactly two years ago, and only just refound it. I decided to publish it for your reading pleasure, as it rather amused me when I reread it. I really think this idea had potential, I may even continue it after I finish Aeon Natum Engel.

Bearers of Dune

We never expected the Holtzmann equations to be usable in this fashion. We knew that they could be used to bend the very fabric of space; examine the suspensor, the Holtzmann shield, the Foldspace engine and the No-field. But to tear, not bend, the walls of reality and through this ripping transport us across some theoretical realm of infinite energy to another universe, to use the crude terms of the layman. We could only see the possibility in the equations that it could be done after we knew it could be done; we cannot see how to do it again.

- Secret report to the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood from the Ixian Confederacy

Idaho's hands went to his console, fingers splayed in the comfield to grasp required elements of the circuit control. No time for niceties. He was in the core in a second, focussing his attention on destroying the all-important regulators which controlled the Ixian Navigation Device. He saw the net begin to thin, the man's eyes widen in shock. He saw the man stretch out a hand, and although there was no sound in this vision, he knew the man was seeing something that he seemed to fear.
Serves you right, to have a little bit of the worry you have inflicted upon me.
As he wrenched out the final component, the net dimmed, but then he seemed to dive into it, and although his mind told him that it should have just been a thin layer, it was much larger than that, a glowing void of light which pulsated through the spectrum. He felt an immense wave of heat, and somehow knew that this net would destroy the ship. As the Foldspace field began to disintegrate he wrenched the ship sideways with his mind, as he remembered the things he had been told by Leto II about the Guild Navigators and how they steered so very long ago, many lifetimes in fact. As he did this he felt a sudden wave of coolness, and the Grid vanished, to be replace in his mind's eye with the welcome sight of stars. Duncan Idaho lay back and closed his eyes.

"What on earth happened there, Daniel!"
The old woman rubbed her hands down the front of her stained garden apron. It was a bright summer morning, with birds flying overhead, their plumage shockingly varied. Despite the sun there was still a faint mist over the horizon, obscuring the lush green hillsides.

"Honestly, Marty, I don't know," Daniel said. He took off his porkpie and squeezed the bridge of his nose. "He surprised me. He shouldn't have been able to do that, I know for certain. There should be no way he should have been able to see the Grid protruding in between the visions we were giving him."

"You knew he could see us! That should have been impossible, too!"

"You know he was trained by the Tyrant; many times, actually. You shouldn't be so surprised that he picked up a few tricks in all of those lifetimes he's had. And he's put them to much better use than the Tielaxu Masters, too. They just stay set in their ways, always trying those damn whistling tricks upon us whenever they see us."

"You sound as if you almost admire him," said Marty, grudgingly. "And I had found such a nice planet for all of them, him and those Bene Gesserit with him. Where is he, anyway? I wasn't paying enough attention to track the infraspace, and then Grid, transition multiphasic co-coordinates."

"You wanted a challenge for them, my dear. They're in a universe of darkness, war and pestilence, where the bigoted, xenophobic human worshipers of a failed Messiah fight a rear-guard against their deaths." Above them the birds swooped, dancing in the air. "I went there once, before we were forced into that treaty with those damned hedonists and those inhuman minds that run them. All the war means their memories have an extra flavour and spice which few other sentients have."

Marty turned pale beneath her tanned, leathery skin. "You know what has happened, Donald. The Old Empire is missing!"

"Missing? How do you lose an area of space?"

"Everything in a 50,000 light year radius of that Bene Gesserit world is… no longer there. It has been replaced by, well, nothing."

"So that is what he did," sighed Daniel, with an air of satisfaction.
"Somehow he managed to generated a Grid-Fold field over that area. Don't look for the Old Empire in our universe, Marty, because he accidentally seems to have shifted it elsewhere."

"What will those so-called Cultured hedonists say? They'll view this as an act of war!"

"Make sure you get the others to keep the Infra- and Ultraspace suppressors up. They won't be able to launch an attack without careful preparation if their machines can't think. What I don't get is why they object to us borrowing memories, anyway. We don't have to kill the donor, and that's all they should really worry about"

"It's their stupid taboo about reading minds. I think their lack of moral restraints have rotted their brains, as well as making their memories far too bland." Marty picked up her shears, and began to wander over towards the roses.

Daniel began to water the grass. "Too true, too true. What worries me is what the other machines will do. You know, the ones which that abomination that seems to only live for pain is a servant of."

"Oh, yes. I truly loathe them. At least the hedonists act like the pre-Jihad humans, using machines as tools. And they're suffering the same fate as them, as the organics wither intellectually their tools end up running them. Those machines are far too uppity, trying to kill all of humanity in their universe. Do you remember their pathetic war between their Intelligences."

Daniel picked up an off-cut rose. "My, this is a pretty one. Yes, I do. I laughed for nearly a week when I found it."

Marty put down her shears, and flexed her shoulders. "I'm going in to get some more seeds. While I'm in there, I'll see what happened to the Old Empire."

"Don't you think some xyiflagtl would look nice in this border?

"I prefer petunias. I have some nice memories from some Bene Gesserit reaching back to Old Earth."

"Maybe tulips. Remember Holland in the 19th century. Those were some pretty gardens."

Marty smiled. "Oh yes, that would look lovely. I'll go and make some white bulbs. They'd look lovely with the black roses."